dark moon rising

The cat wars are ongoing and not sure how we resolve that. Just when we think we have one of the tempests settled, another arises. 

Monday Tigger2 attacked Blackie in the yard when we thought these two males, both neutered now, were managing to ignore each other at least. Apparently as Tigger2 feels more confident of his position, he begins to think he can challenge for alpha. We are not letting that happen. Cat wars can't be ignored since they lead to abscesses.

Then Tuesday morning Babe was playing with the cat toys and Raven decided to play too. For a little, it looked as though it was working but then one got too rough and scared the other. I heard a loud growl and yowl, looked over from my desk to see one of them on her back and the other over her-- with both black, I am not sure who was on top, as I was concerned mayhem was about to be done. I let out the mad mama yell and scared them both enough to break apart. Blackie came from another room to see what had gone wrong; so for a little while, we had three black cats with bushy tails.
 
An hour later all was peaceful and Raven nuzzled Babe. So go figure. One thing is cats are not easy to work out peaceful pecking orders-- nor do they stay constant. We have pretty well decided the two males will have to stay apart for now and that can be arranged. That though doesn't answer whether we have a problem with the other three-- the kind of problem that leads to abscesses.

With all the violence in the world, some of it totally senseless, the angry words being thrown around with the election season in the US, maybe there really is a dark moon rising...

 Update: After I wrote this, we decided to watch the film Babe, which I think turned out to be a mistake. There is a little violence in there which I hadn't considered impacting the young cat who is finding television quite fascinating (they get over it). When the dogs killed the sheep, she bristled up and ran from the room with her back hunched. When she returned a little later, the older female went ballistic on her with bristles, hunched back, plus growls. It took us yelling and a water bottle to bring momentary peace. So females not getting along either as now the older female had decided attacking the younger is fair game. Cats!